ISA urges Sri Lanka to move into digital auctioning for energy tenders
The Morning: The International Solar Alliance (ISA), an intergovernmental solar energy deployment project founded by the Indian and French governments, urged Sri Lanka to adopt a digital tendering process for its energy auctions, wherein the government would be enabled to select bids for lowest utility pricing, ISA Director General Ashish Khanna told Sri Lankan media.
Speaking of the Indian digital tendering system, Khanna said: “When you have a digital tendering system in which whoever from the private sector wanting to be a part of it (is participating in the bid), there is an electronic submission which later on evolved into an auction mechanism, where you can continue to reduce the price, without knowing who else is bidding, in order to get the least possible price, for the utility of the consumer.”
He added that the tendering system reduced at least 70% of solar bids made over the past ten years.
The ISA was launched by India and France in 2015 with the intention of promoting solar energy and combating climate change.
According to the European Commission’s website, it aims to mobilise $ 1 trillion by 2030, with 1,000 GW of solar capacity across partner nations, and a target of providing energy access to one billion people.
Digitalisation, Khanna emphasised, was one of the main value propositions made during the organisation’s negotiations with the governments of the member states.
“On the question of regional partnerships and climate finance, this is something which is our main value proposition, both through regional interconnections and also through the SIDS (Small Island Developing States) platform, which got signed today.”
He expanded on the ability to drive prices down through the adoption of digitalisation.
“It will be a way to bring down the cost of transaction, so that each country, Solomon Islands, should not be doing small 5–10-megawatt tenders separately, but we all combine the tenders, economies-of-scale will bring down the cost of supply, but also you learn from each other how to do it faster.”
Khanna added that it is also a mechanism by which countries like Sri Lanka can incentivise climate financing.
Sri Lanka aims to achieve 70% of its electricity generation from renewable sources by 2030, which would roughly require $ 11.26 billion. Its previous government had iterated that the investment would be divided between acquisition infrastructure and network upgrades, with the goal of developing a total of 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity and establishing pumped storage plants with another 700 megawatts.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s ongoing economic expansion that has further propelled the expansion of the country’s digital economy covering all key economic sectors has opened a host of business/investment opportunities for foreign businesses/investors. It is in such a backdrop that the advancements in the ICT and digital infrastructure development sectors have now expanded to cover the power industry in Sri Lanka, especially in the renewable energy sector. With Sri Lanka’s renewable energy general sector on a steady growth path with the Sri Lankan government’s commitment to increase the electricity generated to renewable energy to 70% of the total power mix and the increasing demand due to the expanding economy, the country’s power industry and ICT and digital infrastructure development sectors present a host of lucrative business ventures. Given the growth, profits and expansion recorded by local businesses already engaged in these sectors, foreign businesses/investors while exploring the expanding business/investment opportunities could also look at further expanding operations through local collaborations.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20250725/Z_1 |